


The Divine and The Dark

by courgette96



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Attempted Kidnapping, Ben as Persephone, Hades and Persephone AU, Hints at other fandoms, Hux as Hades, Labyrinth References, M/M, Magical Realism, Peter Pan References, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Reincarnation, Stockholm Syndrome vibe inherent to the myth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 23:47:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6304948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/courgette96/pseuds/courgette96
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has happened a thousand of times in a thousand of different ways, but the beginning is always the same.</p><p>From the throne in his Realm, Hux watches. In the Light, under the sun, Ben is unaware, until he is dragged down by unforgiving hands and the cycle can start anew.</p><p>Throughout it all, shadows watch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Divine and The Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on TFA kink:
> 
> Hux is Hades. Kylo is Persephone. 
> 
> +If canon!Hux and Ren are the *reincarnations* of these ancient greek gods and slowly remember who they used to be.
> 
>  
> 
> No Beta, all mistakes are mine.

Leia Organa is royalty. She is a warrior, and she has become legend. She nurtures, and defends, and punishes and shows mercy.

She will die, some day, as all men do. But her legend will remain, tales of her fight, of her rule will live on.

Through this, she is divine.

And divinity is a gift through blood, and in her son is that same spark of godliness. He is a warrior through the weapon on his hip, blade made of light. He is royalty by his mother’s grace. He defends, for his training taught him as much. Jedi, the Light, such bright and living things.

But perhaps…

Nurture he can, that much has been proven. From the little girl always at his hips, hair pulled in three buns, a little Rey of sunshine and spring as she plays on his laps. He calls her “cousin”, she calls him “my Ben”. Love is fierce, love is bright ; and near her and for her, he is benevolence and protection.

But to look at the way he _punishes._

Violence, and rage, and abandon. Passion in every swing, in every muffled scream and clenched fists. He punishes none more than himself, and in those moments, the _darkness_ in him!

Hux watches it all from his seat which is like a throne. Clever little spies, cleverer cameras still, all allowing him to watch what happens in that Senate he refuses to go to. His place is the First Order, is Starkiller deep below the planet’s surface. The corridors are dark, the light is false, and from here he watches.

Ben Solo.

As Hux watches, the Senate around Ben becomes a field. The beige robes become white, stained green at the bottom from walking in the grass all day long. Small green strands peak out around naked feet.

As Hux watches, the shadows around him grow deeper still. The sound of steps around him fades. No longer military marches, but soft ghostly glides. The weight of a crown on his head, like the ruler he has yet to become.

Ben Solo.

The name is new and familiar.

~*~

How strange that one so valuable can be so easily stolen.

For theft it is, when the mother is unaware, the boy unsolicited. When the deal goes through weak willed men and cowardly Senators. The promise of peace, of a placated beast, if only for one concession. One man, one bond, like the Kings of old.

The Galaxy is worth a wedding, is it not?

And Organa doesn’t think to look over the son already grown, for she needs to reason with the fools she calls peers. She picked the wrong battle, but doesn’t know it yet.

And Ben Solo doesn’t alarm himself at the darkness he feels growing, for he confuses it with his own.

And the little girl senses disquiet, but is too young to comprehend.

And the father has barely ever been in the story at all.

A false mission. One lone man on a shuttle, alone with a few nervous politicians around him. He will not read their minds, for he tries to be kind. He will not understand the cause for their nerves until it is too late.

How strange that it should all be so easy.

Like a practiced routine.

~*~

 _Has this happened before?_ Hux thinks as he pulls Ben Solo into his domain.

The Force user bucks and kicks, his powers denied to him by two deceptively delicate bracelets on his wrists. He spits and curses and fights, though the worst of his bile is reserved for those who watch and do nothing.

But still, when he turns towards Hux, there is poison in his eyes. It drips from his tongue as he speaks his name, potent and destructive and pure.

For one who sprung of the Light, he has such death within him.

 _Has this happened before?_ Hux thinks, as Ben Solo still allows himself to be dragged along, as the feet do not dig into the ground as much as they should. As the poison given to him in a glare taste of recognition and fatality.

The doors of Starkiller close.

It is winter outside.

~*~

Leia is furious when she learns what happened. Rey weeps when she understands that Ben is not coming home.

The Senate trembles in the face of them both. Shame before the crying child ; terror in front of the angry mother. No one speaks a word, either in their defense or in agreement. There is nothing to be said, not until the son is home once more.

But no one knows where he was taken. Those who doomed him, lured by the promise of their own salvation, have never returned. Left neither sign of where they will go, nor any hint of where they might have been. And so Leia can only rage at empty chairs.

These traitors are wise, for all their foolishness.

But it remains: The son is gone ; the mother is furious.

It cannot be helped. He cannot be saved.

They did it for peace. They did it for the good of the Galaxy. Does it not make them righteous? Does it not make it all worth it?

But Leia Organa curses and rages, Rey Skywalker weeps.

And those who thought it justified soon learn otherwise.

~*~

They take the Force, take his clothes and his weapon. They take the light and the Light, the above ground and the sun on his skin. All Ben has is what they give him.

It is luxurious, he thinks as he looks in the mirror. It is nothing much.

He isn’t dressed in black, a fact that shocks him more than it should. Instead the robes given to him are a pure white, from the base fabric to the small embellishments along the sleeves. They are large and flowing, so much so that the fabric pools in the crease of his elbows when he folds them, threatens to slip of his shoulders at any sudden move.

He is thankful that they gave him pants to wear. He understands why they gave him no shirt to wear beneath the robes.

It is all for the General’s benefit, after all.

Ben sees his hungry eyes reflected in the mirror.

“Why did you take me?” he asks, not turning around.

The man in the mirror smiles. It is a cold thing. “I had to.”

_For what must happen will happen._

Ben stands taller. The situation would be easier, somehow, if only he were to tower over all as he usually does. Alas, the General is tall, and a few inches of added power make little difference when one is prisoner. “You gain nothing from it,” he defies.

He glares as the dark man approaches. He is all cold colors and hard edges, from the sharpness of his uniform to the sharpness of his face. When he comes to stand behind him, he is a dark shadow near a white stream. Red against black. They only match in the paleness of their skin.

Hux’s green eyes glint.

“I gain you.”

They do not touch each other, but stand so close that Ben can feel the heat coming from the General’s body - and funny, he had thought he’d be cold.

Through the mirror, they stare at each other still.

“Would you like to eat, Ben Solo?”

The voice is soft, the offer is alluring. He hasn’t eaten since he has left the Senate, and though rage had kept the hunger at bay, it has been over a day now.

His lips part open.

He tastes pomegranate on his tongue.

“No,” he says sharply, much more than he had intended. A sudden burst of fear makes him recoil, only he had forgotten for a moment just where he stood, and instead of moving away he falls straight into the General’s arms.

They are surprisingly strong as they catch him.

Ben can feel his cheek redden in embarrassed rage. That he would fall, that he would be caught, that he would be here at all is too much of an insult to bear.

He bucks, struggles to stand, but the arms tighten around him again - and how _strong!_ \- and all he can do is look up and glare.

Hux looks down on him, a smirk on his lips.

“You will eat eventually,” he says.

_You always do._

~*~

Ben is a child of the Force. He sees with more than his eyes. It is as natural as breathing to him. One sense completing five others, the picture singular and whole, and most importantly, harmonious.

At least it used to be.

Now, when he looks around him, he sees the metal and stone walls, the neon lights that lit up as Hux makes his way through the halls. Doors and soldiers and everything tangible. It shapes a prison.

And then he looks some more, and he sees the shadows in the corners and on the walls come alive and spread. The whisper, they dance, some are playful and others vicious, but all part before Hux as he makes his way towards Ben.

Neon lights and metal walls.

Dark shadows and nothing else.

The two visions come and go, blur together in clashing colors. Two different realities, two different state of beings.

Ben is a child of the Force, and in many ways a child still. The neons are a false light, but they are Light still, and so he clings to them to chase away the dark around him.

The shadows pout at being ignored, like children being denied their mother’s attention.

~*~

Hux is not a mystic. He has no need to be.

Empires rise and fall in just one plane, where men kill and die without sending ripples through the Universe. Hux fights, and conquers, and rules in a world of five senses, and it doesn’t matter if there is something out there that he cannot perceive, so long as his subject are equally blind to it.

Brendol Hux has no need for the Force, no care for the irrational.

And yet…

There are impossibilities sneaking into the base, double standards of reality that should never be.

There are precisely seven hundred and forty six officers on base. And just as many shadows. There are three thousand and fifty two Stormtroopers, and just as many shades.

The shades do as they please, wander through the halls in mournful silence. They did not choose to be here, and are burdened with regrets unvoiced and unknown. There is nothing to be done for them.

The shadows, however, come to him sometimes, if only to inform him that his guest is being most dismissive. Expected, but hurtful all the same, so could he not reason with him, that it may go faster this time? There is so much to be done, and so little time until first Spring.

“Why do you talk?” Hux asks in lieu of an answer one day, in the silence of his own private quarters. He is a rational man, and rational men do not tolerate impossibilities.

Except when they do.

_We are here because we are bored. Have you not been listening?_

“I am going mad,” he murmurs, finishing his glass of Corellian wine in one go. A peculiar brew, this one. It tastes of fruit.

_You are not mad. You are divine._

A flattering sentiment, if nothing else.

But Hux would never stoop so low as to allow himself to be seduced by flattery.

“Go away,” he orders cooly, even as he himself leaves the room. There is work to be done, in the rational and singular plane.

The shadows huff as they watch him leave. Ah, but the two of them are most unpleasant this cycle!

~*~

He is so very hungry. He hasn’t eaten in so long.

Ben only has himself to blame, really.

The food is always there, always within reach. Next to his hand, in front of him when he turns around, there is always a table, always the fruit, and he _hungers._

Ben is only human.

It is only fruit.

And yet, when his hands close around the pomegranate, when he brings the small red pulp to his lips, he is trembling. His fingers squeeze so tightly around the little ruby he fears he might break it, crush the flesh to have red juice running down his fingers. In his mind’s eye it pours and pours down his palm and his wrists, staining his sleeve. Ruining his gift.

The thought is pleasing.

But he is so _hungry._

The fruit touches his lips, onto his tongue. His fingers linger in front of his mouth.

His blood is pounding in his temples.

He squeezes his eyes shut.

He bites.

He breathes.

Nothing happens.

The fruit bursts on his tongue, and tastes of nothing. The juice may as well be water, and when it pours down his throat it only feeds, doesn’t satisfy.

He opens his eyes, and the halls haven’t changed. The air is no heavier than before, and his heart beats just as strong.

Nothing happened.

Even alone in the room, he feels like such a fool.

But he isn’t alone, never fully, because around him the shadows start giggling. They are neither malicious nor mocking, but their laughter only makes his embarrassment worse. He has only ever been able to do one thing in these situation, but his shackles still hold strong, and he finds himself powerless.

Or almost.

The bowl of fruit goes crashing against the wall, shattering into a thousand shards even as the fruit splatters like a blood stain on the floor. The noise is loud and satisfying, and the fact that he threw it with his own hands seems to make the violence more potent, somehow.

The juice does drip down his hand, only not onto his sleeves but on the floor. Like drippings from a wounded hand.

And still the shadows do not stop.

 _It was only fruit,_ they chime, before giggling once more.

“Shut up,” Ben grits out, cheeks burning in humiliation.

The shadows ignore him.

_Only fruit. Only ever fruit. It was never about the seeds._

“Then _what?_ ” Frustration, pleading, anticipation, all these different emotions in his voice, all at the same time.

He has always made a very poor Jedi.

A particularly small shadows steps forward, its glide clumsy in its eagerness. But like all small things, it holds depths of courage and daring, so it latches onto his sleeve, climbs up to settle in his neck.

It feels much warmer than he would have thought.

(Or perhaps he is merely growing colder.)

 _It is about knowing,_ it whispers in his ear, a child’s secret and an old one’s wisdom. _It is about knowing, and wanting anyway._

~*~

The first time it had been in a field, where the sun shone bright and the ground ripped open. He had taken her hand, pulled her to him, and nothing less that the King of gods could make him relinquish his hold.

The second time had been done in dreams, where one had been golden and bright and the other one only half living. He dreamed, she watched, she took him with a corpse-like hand and the world was plunged in a final winter.

The third time it had been a girl, and a boy who would never grow up, and whose shadows were most unruly that time around. He had taken her hand, and together they flew far and away, and though some say she returned home in the end, it is a lie. He was a selfish child, always had been, and he wouldn’t let her go.

It has been many things, many times over, but only shadows are left to remember, and they never tell. Each time is a new story. Each time is a new beginning.

But some beginnings are more long coming than other, especially with two people as stubborn as them.

So when Ben Solo joins the General at the dinner table, the first time he has done so in the month he has been here, when he eats the fruit and drinks the nectar, when the General speaks to him and he answers, the shadows are all very relieved indeed.

And, as it is, more than a little smug.

~*~

“Is the food to your liking?” Hux asks one night. His voice is quiet, yet it carries across the table that separates them, which is both needlessly long and much too short for Ben’s taste. The fact that he sits at it at all makes him burn.

“It is like ashes in my mouth,” he spits out with more bile than he truly feels. “Your meat is dust. You nectar tastes of nothing at all.”

“That is Republic softness.” The General hums. “It is because you are still a newcomer. To those that dwell here, the wine is sweet indeed.”

Sweet as fruit. Just as deadly.

The thought makes him frown.

The walls come closer. The shadows laugh around him.

“Quiet,” he hisses. The order is sharp and decisive. It is the order of a King.

Which is why his blood freezes when the shadows obey him.

In front of him, the General smiles.

Ben takes another sip of the wine.

He is relieved to taste nothing at all.

Hux stands, slowly makes his way towards him. Ben stays seated, watches the man approach with trepidation. Anticipation.

He comes to a stand before him, and when he takes his hand in his, Ben doesn’t stop him.

“I do not wish for you to be unhappy here,” Hux whispers against his knuckles, eyes never leaving his. The cool breath brushes against Ben’s skin. He shivers.

He isn’t cold.

“I know,” he whispers in return, and watches green eyes grow ever so brighter.

He wonders if his own are doing the same.

Hux presses a kiss on the back of his hand, slow and soft and barely there.

Ben can feel the trace of lips burn into his skin, like a brand.

It is not an unpleasant sensation.

~*~

It is different now, Hux muses from the comfort of his chair.

Ben Solo used to run from him. Avoid his presence, avoid the halls, lock himself up in his room under a beam of artificial light. And Hux had been…

Well, the only word he is willing to use is displeased.

The shadow in the corner rolls its eyes. It looks like Phasma.

They both manage to convey eye rolls despite a lack of any visible face.

“I barely know him,” he says out loud as he looks at his glass of Corellian nectar. He sounds much more defensive than he intended.

In his experience, that is the sign of the losing side.

 _That isn’t quite true,_ it replies reasonably. _People don’t want as you want without knowing._

Hux listens, because although he rejects any impossibility, he knows better than to deny that which happens. The shadows have been pestering him far too much lately for him to deny their presence.

Besides, if he is truly mad, then Ben Solo shares his delusions. The thought is oddly comforting.

“My wants have hardly been rational as of late,” he mumbles back. “Organa is relentless in her search of him, I am distracted by his mere presence. He isn’t worth the effort, the trouble, and yet…”

_And yet you wait for the day when he will accept your kiss._

Hux would sneer at the sentiment, if he were prone to dishonesty. Instead, he can only frown at the wording.

A hand in his. Lips against his knuckles. The brush of fingers against a bare shoulder. These Ben Solo will accept, nothing more, and Hux would never impose anything more than what is welcome.

But him and his irrational wants…

It seems so important, to give Ben Solo that kiss.

There is a sewing thimble in his pocket. He toys with it absentmindedly.

“And yet,” he repeats, “I want.”

_And you know._

“Perhaps,” he evades. “Barely. It is more knowing that I know than anything else. It is enough. There is no reason to dwell on what is known.” He sighs. “I may be impatient, but I do have the advantage of prior observation. I suppose I cannot fault him for any frustration on my part.”

 _Perhaps you can,_ the shadow muses, _as he is particularly contrary this time around._

“Oh good. I thought it was just me.”

~*~

The soldiers march far beneath the dais, white and faceless and oddly silent. Ben would have thought that a thousand feet stamping the ground would be so loud as to make the building shake, but all he hears from them are dull echoes of smothered minds.

These men are but shadows.

Or perhaps it is Ben who is too high above them.

“Your soldiers are little more than corpses,” he says to the General who stands beside him. The provocation is without heat, for this place devours any sort of warmth that could be found.

Hux has created it in his own image. And perhaps Ben will follow suit.

The Force user no longer feels cold. His skin is as pale as the robes he wears, months under the surface draining it of color.

The wine still tastes of ashes though.

“They are what they need to be,” Hux replies. His long arms come to drape around Ben, pulling him to his chest. They linger on his waist, merely holding him instead holding him still.

Ben could pull away if he wished to. He doesn’t.

His eyes are still trained on the anonymous masses. Thousands of once-children, who are now barely men or women. Their concerns are small, their minds deaf to the Force, blind to the outside world.

They are nothing like him.

They are his kin.

Children pulled away into the Darkness, locked away in a base and in white. Hidden away from everyone, including themselves and each other. Anonymity, uniformity, until they barely exist at all anymore.

Hux’s kingdom is built on stolen things.

And in the place of the pity or outrage Ben should feel, there is only a soft melancholy. He cannot muster the strength for anything else.

They are as they are. Ben has known their past and their fate for a long time now.

Some things cannot be changed.

Or so he thinks, until he sees it. Not with his eyes, but with the Force.

Among the sea of dull and dead white, something strong and bright and _growing._

He looks like all the others, walks like them, stands like them, and yet…

 _This one_ is different. Ben looks at him, and he knows.

This one is waiting, though he doesn’t know it yet. He is waiting, and one day someone will come, and pull him out of this underground. With their back turned to each other, neither seeing the other, they will fly away.

Free. Aboveground. In the Light.

The General’s lips come to brush against his neck.

Ben allows it, and smiles.

~*~

At night, he dreams.

He dreams of his mother, who comes closer and closer still. She has given up on the Senate, on reasoning with those who would see him remain here so that they may be content. A warrior once more, divine since always, she has her own army behind her. And she marches.

He dreams of Rey, who looks out of the window towards the sun he hasn’t seen in so long. There is a melancholy to her that should never be in such a young child, and a resignation that breaks his heart. Rey is strong, so strong in the Force, and so she knows things, senses things that he wishes she wouldn’t. She can sense, but she cannot stop, and Ben wouldn’t wish that kind of helplessness on anyone.

And some nights, he dreams of nothing.

Those dreams are the most familiar.

He has always feared the Dark. More than any child, because darkness didn’t only hide monsters under the bed, but also in his mind, in his heart, with voices as sweet as the candy his mother often denied him. The Dark was a legacy none would want, a grandfather whose shadow would terrify and suffocate him.

But the most frightening thing about the Dark is how much Ben wanted it.

And that is why these dreams are the most terrifying of all, because as he floats in the Void, he is at content. The Darkness around him is thick, so very thick, and it cloaks around his shoulders, crowns his head. It is as soft as silk against his skin, teasing and soothing, and Ben lets himself fall back from the bliss of it all.

He falls back until he is caught, until thin arms wrap around him to pull him flush against a hard and lithe chest, and if it had been bliss before then Ben has no name for what it is now.

He cannot help it ; he laughs.

The one behind him chuckles too.

Darkness shifts, shadows whisper.

The touch of silk is replaced by a different touch entirely, down his chest, on the inside of his thigh. Laughter becomes a moan as Ben tosses his head back, and -

He wakes up, panting and sweating, in a room that is too bright despite the lights being out, in a bed with sheets as soft as silk and sorely lacking. His lips are heavy with a laugh, a moan, a sob, far too much and not enough.

And beneath all of that, there is wanting.

Oh Force, how it _hurts!_

~*~

If he were a kinder man, Hux would worry he is ruining Ben Solo.

He is a cold man, this is a cold place, and he knows that any who would have met young Ben would agree that the man needs nurture and warmth, that Ben Solo deserves the Light, deserves to be at peace with himself and the world.

They would also agree that Hux deserves nothing but misery and solitude.

But Hux is a cold man, is not kind, and so he even as he acknowledges all of that he refuses to let Ben go. Those bracelet-like shackles he put on the first day still hold, and will for as long as Hux demands. And as Solo’s face grows paler, as his hair looks darker in contrast and as shadows accompany his every step like an honored escort, Hux finds him more and more beautiful. Withdrawn and bold, quiet and demanding, deathly pale and so _alive_ , all that he is now has been shaped by his time here, by the shadows. By Hux himself.

Ben Solo is made for him, the most childish, most ancient part of him screams, and pragmatic, rational Hux finds himself agreeing with it, if with one amendment, far too sentimental for his taste and far too true to be ignored:

Ben Solo is made for him, and Hux belongs to him entirely.

So when Hux kisses the back of his hand, when he caresses his shoulder with a gloveless hand, it is not taking, but offering. Giving his lips, his self, his entire kingdom, and only waiting for Ben to accept.

And despite the confidence of the shadows, despite the certitude that springs from his absent memories, part of him cannot help but fear that his offering will forever be denied. Ben Solo is more than stubborn enough for that.

“Has it happened once?” He asks, voice uncharacteristically timid. He suspects the answer, doesn’t want to hear it. Needs to know.

The sad sigh the shadows give is all he needs.

 _Love me, fear me, do as I say and I will be your slave,_ one says, both bitter and mocking.

 _You have no power over me,_ another laments.

 _But what else could she have said?_ A third reminds them sharply. _What else, when all there had been for her was cruel amusement and wicked tricks, when her brother’s fate was made a toy, and the fruit was poisonous and cursed?_

There is his answer then.

Disappointing, but not unexpected.

How he hopes it won’t come to that.

For Hux is a cold man, an unkind one. His touch is the touch of Winter.

Ben Solo is the only one who would bear it, and Hux loves him for it.

~*~

It is said that when one stays in Darkness for long enough, their sight adapts and they see differently.

Ben knows it must be true. For how else can he explain what is happening to him?

The two sights that tormented on his first arrival are gone. Or rather, they are one.

And so when Ben looks, he now sees.

He sees that the narrow corridors are rivers, which he names Lethe and Styx and Acheron.

He sees the field of flowers where lie those who are proclaimed virtuous, and the depths of punishment for those who have committed the greatest crimes.

And most importantly, he sees Hux.

The General is the same as he has always been, and yet it is like rediscovering him. The red hair that always catches his eye even from across the room, the green eyes that bore into his with an intensity that would be frightening if it were not thrilling.

The touch of fingertips, softer than silk. Ben believes he can feel every ridge of every fingerprint as they trail along his arms, small hills and valleys carved by fate and eternity, and much more eloquent than this solemn man could ever be.

There is no need for any grand speech, when there are hundreds of words and thousands of years in every caress.

There are times when he turns away. He hasn’t forgotten what Hux is, in this life at least. Sometimes, in the privacy of his room, he will rage against the furniture and the walls at his own darkening heart, that he could feel anything at all for this man, whom he should strike down and be called a hero for it.

But heroism has never been Ben’s story, and the times when he leans into the caress are just as frequent as when he doesn’t, only in his memories they become much more vibrant.

Hux is color and noise and joy in the darkness.

Hux is everything and Ben finds himself drinking in the sight of him.

He mustn’t be nearly as discrete as he would have hoped, for the shadows around him start giggling like gossiping children.

Ben glares at them half-heartedly. “Don’t you have better things to do than watch my every move?”

The shadows only giggle harder.Ben doesn’t have the heart to get upset.

If anything, their amusement and peculiar insouciance serve as a distraction from himself.

~*~

The ginger cat lounges lazily on couch. It yawns, because Ben is being very dull, and it looks forward to the day he will make himself useful scratch behind its ear.

Ben stares at it sullenly.

It stares back.

He purses his lips. “You were more impressive as a three-headed dog.”

The slow eyeblink he gets in response is full of apathy and disdain. Times change, little Lord. You should know that better than most.

Now, if you would continue to scratch where my paws cannot reach, I would be most delighted.

“No, I don’t think I will.”

Then take your useless fingers and go.

“You..!” Ben sputters, cheeks turning red.

Hux laughs then, stepping forward and scooping the stupid beast in his arms. Settling down on a chair, he place the fur ball on his laps and begins scratching its belly.

“Now, Mili, don’t be rude,” he chides gently.

The cat purrs. I won’t be rude if you don’t stop.

Hux chuckles again, and Ben can feel his lips tugging into a smile.

~*~

It is Winter outside Starkiller, but that means nothing for the rest of the Galaxy. Planets turn, time goes by, and the shadows grow restless that soon it will run out.

They have waited, and waited, but soon…

Something needs to give in.

And it could only ever be one person.

~*~

Ben wakes up once again, a plea on his lips and a weight in his stomach. He dreamed again.

He will be torn apart from the torment of it if it continues.

It is hard, keeping it all at bay. It is hard to eat the fruit, and refuses to see anything but pulp and juice. It is hard to walk past shadows, all day, every day, and continue to look past them. It is hard to see Hux, and…

Oh, but it is hard to _want._

Perhaps that is why the Jedi decided to stop.

Force knows Ben never managed.

It is worse here, away from everyone but Hux. Nothing but him, and the shadows, and the underground. No reminder, no uncle to look over his shoulder, no guilt but the one he inflicts upon himself.

Although that last one has been strong enough to last him months.

But even that source has nearly run dry.

The small shadow, childlike still, makes a move towards him. It probably meant to comfort him, or something of the like. It has always been so kind to him.

They all have been, even if the others were never quite as gentle as this one. Ben knows them, each and everyone. He knows the names they once had even as he no longer remembers them. Knows who they are in one plane, and what they have become in this one.

He knows them, and their hearts. He knows they will never harm him.

But when small tendrils of black reach towards him, he flinches.

How is it possible for something faceless to look so crestfallen?

Ben freezes, unsure how to make it better, unsure if he even wants to - or rather, if he should want to.

The point becomes moot when the little thing throws itself into his arm with a cry.

 _Do not fear me,_ it pleads pitifully, clinging to his robes. _You were never so cold to me, not when we were in the field of grass, not when the Queen of Hel took offered you her dead hand! You never feared, so why now?_

“I am sorry,” he whispers, and is surprised to find that he means it. “But I shouldn’t be kind to you.”

 _Why not?_ It whimpers, and it breaks his heart.

“Because then it would mean I belong here. I don’t,” he adds, voice more shaky than he would have liked. “I belong above, with my mother, and Rey, and in the sun. I am of the _Light._ Not the Dark.”

But what do shadows know of Light, he thinks bitterly.

More than him, as it turns out. They are older than him in many regards.

So of course they are wiser as well.

 _Why can’t you be both,_ it murmures, curling up in his arms. _Above and below. Spring and Winter. You were always both before._

Ben’s breath hitches. Of all the impossibilities he has faced here, this one seems the greatest of all.

To be both. To choose by not choosing.

“I can’t,” he croaks out. His eyes stare straight ahead, unseeing. “I have to choose, to be one or the other… I _can’t._ ”

 _Yes you can,_ the shadow replies, so earnest and confident and… _You always do._

A child’s secret. An old one’s wisdom.

That is what it takes for him to give in.

Ben weeps, from sorrow, from relief, from all those emotions he could never do away with, that made him such a poor Jedi no matter how much he tried. He wanted to be like them, like those heroes made of pure Light and serenity, but he never could be. He had Dark in him, undeniable and true and _good_. No matter how much he may aspire for the above, he had always been made for the Below. With the shadows.

And shadows can be playful and innocent, prickly and cynical and so many different shades that it becomes impossible to forget that the Dark is nothing but the alliance of every color.

If only his uncle had told him that.

_So, do you know now?_

Ben says nothing as he cradles the little one against his chest. He says nothing, because even as he accepts, even as he _chooses_ , he doesn’t want to acknowledge the words quite yet. Just for a moment longer, he still wants not to be.

He has made everyone wait this long already. They can wait a while longer.

~*~

A moment is quickly passed.

It only last the time of a thought, about his mother, about Rey, his uncle. About the war he hasn’t been part of these past months, and all the worlds that exist outside the base.

This isn’t renouncement. This isn’t goodbye.

He isn’t sure what it is exactly, but it feels like finally going forward, and back to the beginning.

~*~

Darkness parts around him as he walks. The metal floor is warm against his bare feet.

He meets no one on his way. A thousand souls in this ship, and he is alone. No doors or rooms, only the single corridor made of shadows, a single path leading him to where he has always been going.

Where he always goes.

Hux sits alone in the command center. His large austere chair is all spartan cut and sharp lines, a contrast to his own sprawled figure.

The wine cup in his hand is full. It always has been, Ben notes distantly, even when there had been no jug around to fill it.

Tendrils of black smoke curl around his ankles when he stands still. They tickle, they tease, all to beckon him forward, make him close the distance.

A particularly bold one tries sneaking up his calf. Ben kicks it away, and ignores its cry of outrage.

They have waited this long. They can wait a little longer.

Hux’s eyes are on him, sharp and piercing even as he slowly takes a sip from his cup.

“Where you not dark-haired, once?” Ben asks. The seemingly random question is at odds with the atmosphere of the room, and he would have felt self-conscious if not for Hux smiling in return.

“Where you not blond?” he asks in returns, almost teasingly.

Ben steps forward. “The brother of a King.”

Hux presents his hand. “The daughter of a goddess.”

Ben takes it. “A woman, half dead.”

Hux tugs at him gently, pulling Ben closer until the Force user straddles his laps. “A warrior far more noble than you are now.”

Their faces are close now, and with his hands on Hux’s chest, Ben can feel the General’s heartbeat. It is fast, so very fast, and Ben finds it endearing.

“I remember none of it,” he whispers, leaning forward still.

Hux exhales ; his breath tickles Ben’s skin. “Neither do I,” he breathes out, placing a hand on the small of Ben’s back. “Nothing at all.”

It is the truth ; Ben has only ever been Ben. Hux was only ever Hux.

And yet….

When Ben first looked upon that sharp, pale face, he had felt echoes of hate and love.

When Hux pulled Ben Solo down under, he felt a relief he had never known before.

Neither of them remember anything.

But deep down, they _know._

And Ben wants it.

His robes have slidden of his shoulders, pooling in the crease of his elbows and on the small of his back. The dark comes to drape around him, a cloak that merges with his surroundings.

Hux looks on with hungry eyes, seemingly oblivious to how the Dark has draped around him as well, how smoke and metal have formed a crown around his brow. The structure is delicate, a small circlet with barely any ornaments save sharp geometric carvings. It suits him.

“Where did this come from?” Ben asks with a smile, tracing the edge of the crown with the tip of his finger.

Hux’s eyes glance up towards his own brow. “I have no idea,” he murmurs back, and for a brief moment it almost looks as if he is going to pout. “It is impossible, and irrational, and all I can do is accept it. It is infuriating.”

Ben cannot help it ; he laughs.

Hux looks at him, eyes shining with mirth. His hand lifts up to cup Ben’s face. “Beautiful.”

Gently, he pulls himself forward, closer and closer until his lips hover over Ben’s. But he stops, and pulls back ever so slightly, just enough so that he can meet Ben’s eyes. Just enough so that he can look upon his face as he asks:

“May I?”

Ben smiles, and answers by closing this distance himself.

If there had been bliss before, then he has no words for what this is now.

Hux’s lips are soft and pliant, the very opposite of the man himself. The hand on his back is strong and secure, and the hair around his fingers vibrant even to the touch.

But best of all is that which had been out of his reach for so long.

The wine from the underworld had always been like dust on his tongue.

Tasted from Hux’s lip, it is deliciously sweet.

~*~

If this sort of passion is the Dark side, Ben thinks deliriously as Hux’s mouth engulfs him, then he curses himself for denying it for so long.

He could have been doing this since forever. And in a sense he has, because there is no way for such touches to come from anything but a familiar lover. There is no way for Hux’s words to move him so, for the sighs and moans that fall from his lips to fulfil him so completely.

And the tongue, _oh Force_ , it can be nothing but the sign of true divine intervention.

Ben says this out loud, amidst the litany of prayer and praise that falls from his lips, and it makes Hux chuckle. And Hux’s laughter makes Ben heat up in all sorts of wonderful ways, so much so that he pulls him by his red hair, slots his lips against his and hopes his tongue is half as skilled and eloquent.

It doesn’t matter if it isn’t, because he has his hands, and Hux’s fingers. His eyes, which he has been told are most expressive. The feeling of Hux inside him, and the moans which he doesn’t bother holding back.

And the Dark that he still wears as a cloak, and the crown that is still upon his General’s brow, still intact and pure despite the sweat on their skin and rumpled hair.

They look a mess.

They look divine.

If Ben had a say, it would last forever, but as he flies higher and higher, he knows that he will fall eventually. Soaring too close to a passionate sun, there is only one way this could end, and it is a price he is all too willing to pay.

And when it does happen, the world dissolves into white light, beyond bliss, and Ben lets himself fall, knowing that Hux will catch him.

~*~

It is Winter outside Starkiller, as it always is. But Spring must come, even in the most frozen of lands.

It takes the form of the gates being forced open.

The base shakes, Ben and Hux wake up abruptly, the Stormtroopers take their positions.

Leia Organa walks in the base, surrounded by loyals from the Resistance and the most righteous the New Republic has to offer. The shadows reluctantly part in front of her, because although they do not serve her there is still a process to these things.

The mother came. She doesn’t always, but must be respected is she does.

“Give me my son back,” she demands, glaring at the General. Age has made her voice deeper, but has taken none of the authority out of it.

Unfortunately for her, Hux is not so easily cowered. “He is not mine to give,” he answers with a smirk. “Moreover, I would suggest you refrain from using force. These proceedings were entirely legal after all.”

Leia’s expression turns furious, months of frantic searching taking their toll on her usual perfect composure. Her left hand twitches, Hux’s back straightens, and the whole affair would have degenerated into a fight had Ben not stepped forward at that moment.

“Hey mom,” he says. The informality feels strange on his tongue. “We need to talk.”

~*~

The Republic does like to talk indeed.

He was taken against his will, some protest. We will not stand for such a crime!

But the First Order has respected its side of the agreement, others point out. For the first time in years, we have a lasting ceasefire!

But at what price!?

Is one lone man truly a price too great?!

“Maybe we should compromise,” Ben speaks up, ignoring the sting of those last words.

Those who know them best choke on air from surprise.

Compromise? From a Solo? From an Organa?!

His mother looks at him uncomprehendingly, and if she were crueller it would even be a look of betrayal. He wouldn’t blame her for it ; after all she has gone through to find him, he undermines her at the last second.

He smiles at her, both sad and sheepish, before looking back to the New Republic dignitaries. He takes and deep breath, and makes his offer.

It isn’t perfect, but it is good enough. They will all have to deal with it.

Especially Hux.

~*~

Ben Solo is an oddity among the New Republic. Some call him a victim, others a traitor. Some just think him mad. There are some who refuse to speak to him, others that try to pretend that nothing has happened, and more importantly, that nothing has changed.

And throughout it all, speculations of what happened during those six months. Only a few ever come close.

Ben doesn’t correct any of them.

As it has been before, he cares little for most here, so what matters their opinion? He has his mother, who though saddened by his decision and angry at the General has accepted Ben’s choice. He has Rey, who is still sunshine and Spring, and clings to his legs with a grip that is stronger than ever.

And hidden in the sleeve of his robes, he has a little shadow, childlike and very old, who giggles whenever a Senator passes them by unawares.

Those are gentle times, the days going by at a much more languid pace now that the Galaxy is at peace. Time spent standing behind his mother as she addresses the Senate, or teaching Rey how to levitate the pebbles she always stuffs in her pockets.

And then the hour strikes. The shuttle awaits.

Ben trades beige robes for white ones, a subtle change that everyone notices. He kisses Rey forehead before allowing himself to be carried away, back to the Undergrounds he knows so well.

Hux waits at the gates, his dark longcoat a sharp contrast to the snow around them. He stretches out his hand as Ben approaches, kisses the back of Ben’s knuckles even as his eyes never leave Ben’s face.

He smirks. Ben smiles.

Together, they walk into Starkiller, the shadows swirling around their feet and humming with joy.

The gates of Starkiller close.

It is Winter in the Galaxy.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this fic is kind of a remix of some of my older ones. Halfway through writing it, I realized there were a few recuring themes. I guess I have a type.^^
> 
> Come say hi to me on tumblr! Drop a prompt, a headcanon, anything. I'm trying to make my blog active!


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